Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3x10 - "New Life and New Civilizations"

[eschaton]

This was my main issue. They didn't invest in Batel enough for me to care, they didn't invest enough in the big bad for it to feel a big pay off. They didn't invest in Ortegas's PTSD. It just felt a bit 'there', until it wasn't.

They bit off more than they could chew, because they wanted to focus on:

• The eight regulars (Pike, Una, Spock, Chapel, M'Benga, Uhura, La'an, Ortegas)
• Six other characters (Jim Kirk, Pelia, Scotty, Korby, Beto, Batel)
• Plus have episodes with discrete plots each week, several of which were a bit gimmicky and didn't offer much in terms of character development.

I think they could've pulled this off with a DS9-length season, but it was just too much to pack into just ten episodes. So much of what we got (like Uhura's flirtation with Beto) felt like creating content to keep the character busy, rather than because anyone had a decent story idea.

 

[fireproof78]

You DO realize TNG's Unification and STVI:TUC were shot by a LOT of the same production crew and within moths of each other, right?

Yes. But that wasn't the only coordination point. Sharing sets, models, and even department colors all lended to this idea of sameness.

It's not just one thing.

 

[Noname Given]

Yes. But that wasn't the only coordination point. Sharing sets, models, and even department colors all lended to this idea of sameness.

It's not just one thing.

Yeas, and in my post I didn't state it was 'one coordination point and stated why there was such close coordination BECAUSE many of the production people WERE THE SAME for BOTH Productions.

 

[F. King Daniel]

This got very Marvel movie-ish in parts, but it was enjoyable. Weird they crammed a whole "Inner Light" segment in there but it was nice that it was the love she needed to defeat the baddies.

The Kirk and Spock mind meld bit was a fastforward button for their ultra-bestest-friendship. Definitely doesn't fit with Kirk and Spock not being particularly close in "Where No Man Has Gone Before", but SNW is very loose with continuity anyway so not sure why I'm even mentioning it

 

[Yistaan]

This got very Marvel movie-ish in parts, but it was enjoyable. Weird they crammed a whole "Inner Light" segment in there but it was nice that it was the love she needed to defeat the baddies.

The Kirk and Spock mind meld bit was a fastforward button for their ultra-bestest-friendship. Definitely doesn't fit with Kirk and Spock not being particularly close in "Where No Man Has Gone Before", but SNW is very lose with continuity anyway so not sure why I'm even mentioning it

Kirk and Spock WERE established as being close though early on. I believe in the Man Trap (could be wrong though but it was a S1 episode), which was literally the first episode aired, Uhura tells Spock that Kirk is "the closest thing you have to a friend" (a line which punches harder now that it's canonically established that Uhura knew Spock far longer than Kirk did).

Also, SuperBatel apparently learned through her powers that Pike's on his way to a beeping wheelchair. Did it give her the power to see the future too that he'd have a Talosian reprieve? Because otherwise that's a pretty depressing note to be gaining spiritual strength from honestly, i.e. "I'm going to become a statue but I can handle it because at least my boyfriend is going to be ok, oh wait he's going to end up in a beeping wheelchair which is only marginally better than being a statue"

 

[Seven of Five]

Voted 10 by mistake when it was clearly a 7 - some interesting ideas thar didn't really make a cohesive whole. Almost like a remix of The Inner Light and The Reckoning.

Pike's 'Inner Light' scenes were the highlight for me.

 

[FreezeC77]

Anson Mount's expression when he was on that couch and about to embark on the mission he knew would cripple him was just incredible.

I don't necessarily think the episode deserves a 10, but the emotional hook that was delivered just in the last part of the episode had me give it one.

 

[Yistaan]

Anson Mount's expression when he was on that couch and about to embark on the mission he knew would cripple him was just incredible.

I don't necessarily think the episode deserves a 10, but the emotional hook that was delivered just in the last part of the episode had me give it one.

It's surprising they remembered the wheelchair plot point, because I honestly thought it should have been a MASSIVE factor in Pike's desire to remain Vulcan a few weeks ago and it would've tied in with La'an's desire to start a pre-emptive war (if that war wipes out the Romulans, both of the bad futures that Pike has seen could be averted). But it wasn't even mentioned in that episode.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

When was continuity ever good? Right off the bat in The Cage you have Pike complaining about having women on the bridge with the exception of Number One, while there are other women on the bridge. Or the multiple contradictory references throughout TOS's first season to what century it is, ranging from twenty-second to twenty-eighth.

fireproof78 hit the nail on the head.

Because fans in the 80s and 90s who started with TNG had a different experience than fans with TOS.

Not everybody started with TOS as their First Trek experience.
There are entire Generations of Trekkies whose starting point wasn't TOS
Many of my generation started with TNG > DS9 > VOY > ENT and never bothering with TOS.
So our experience with Trek Continuity is vastly different.

Hell Lower Decks Creator, Mike McMahon started with TNG and beyond.

It's very similar to different generations of Star Wars fans.
There are some generations of Star Wars fan who didn't start with the The Original Trilogy.
Shocking I know, there are some Star Wars fans who started with the Prequel Trilogy.
And even some Newer Younger Star Wars fans who started with the Sequel Trilogy.

Everybody's perspective of continuity is going to be different based on their lived experience.

---

I'll have to disagree, continuity was always very malleable in Star Trek.That's by design, of course - Star Trek doesn't need continuity.

IMO, every show that is a continuous Lineage of Shows/Franchises set in it's own Continuously Shared Universe, doesn't matter if it's Star Trek, it could be any major series, needs continuity.

Short of being the "Twilight Zone" or "Tales from the Crypt", where you're telling random one-off short stories that have no bearing to each other, only in that situation do you not need continuity.

But if your show that has any substance, you will deal with the continuity you create, and abide by it, good or bad.

Star Trek - or at least, TOS, TNG, and Voyager - is about a ship drifting through a dreamlike universe where anything can happen. What happened last week - or last season, or last show - doesn't need to limit what happens this week. It's a vehicle for any story you want to tell, it works on mythic dream logic rather than verisimilitude, and when done well, it's the best thing on TV.

I don't see it as that, I see it more as a Historical Drama set in the Future, a Sci-Fi future where we're trying to accurately re-tell what has happened during each shows time frame.

SNW is obsessed with continuity, however, to the point of making an episode inside an existing episode (A Quality of Mercy). This is pointless and results in a spectacular self-hoisting by their own petard, because when they insist on lodging themselves firmly inside an existing show's legacy, they lay a minefield of entirely self-inflicted traps, and these writers somehow keep triggering them. At this point, they've done it so many times that it's like Sideshow Bob with the rakes.

But I don't think the issue is necessarily that SNW violates continuity - it's that SNW is absolutely fixated on continuity to begin with, and evokes it at any chance it gets. The very nature of the show invites people to criticise the inevitable blunders it makes in that regard.

They made their choice to explore that period of time in Trek, they have to live with the consequences of doing so.

It has it's good & bad moments, but I enjoy the exploration into existing continuity, it's fun.

 

[Mudd]

Continuity has got nothing to do with quality. I don't give a fuck about it, TBH.

 

[Yistaan]

Speaking of continuity, we know from 'The Cage' that Pike in his darker moments thought of running off to be an Orion slaver (yes it was a 1960s episode with less modern sensibilities but it's still canon). Kirk this week tells Spock not to judge a memory on Orion's second moon (it's not detailed but the implication is that it involves Orion debauchery otherwise why would Kirk be embarassed by it? Possibly he was having post-Carol Marcus breakup bedtime with an Orion, as the timeframe would fit about right and we know from TOS that by 2261 Kirk has already moved on from Carol to Janet Wallace).

So basically 2 captains in a row of Starfleet's flagship have a weakness for Orion women, very likely. You think Starfleet would have some sort of psychological screening to watch out for this when choosing officers to lead their finest ship. Realistically the Orions, a known enemy of the Federation, would be sending countless of their most beautiful women after these captains.

 

[UssGlenn]

Definitely doesn't fit with Kirk and Spock not being particularly close in "Where No Man Has Gone Before"

Well, they already have a regular chess game and Spock calls him Jim in the episode.

 

[Noname Given]

Kirk and Spock WERE established as being close though early on. I believe in the Man Trap (could be wrong though but it was a S1 episode), which was literally the first episode aired, Uhura tells Spock that Kirk is "the closest thing you have to a friend" (a line which punches harder now that it's canonically established that Uhura knew Spock far longer than Kirk did).

Also, SuperBatel apparently learned through her powers that Pike's on his way to a beeping wheelchair. Did it give her the power to see the future too that he'd have a Talosian reprieve? Because otherwise that's a pretty depressing note to be gaining spiritual strength from honestly, i.e. "I'm going to become a statue but I can handle it because at least my boyfriend is going to be ok, oh wait he's going to end up in a beeping wheelchair which is only marginally better than being a statue"

I don't think Patel found out about Pike's future accident because of any nw clairvoyant abilities; I think when Pike and her decided to get married, he probably told her himself directly to prepare her for what would come because he also knew he would survive the accident but be in the condition we see him in TOS S1 The Menagerie.

 

[Starflight]

IMO, every show that is a continuous Lineage of Shows/Franchises set in it's own Continuously Shared Universe, doesn't matter if it's Star Trek, it could be any major series, needs continuity.

Short of being the "Twilight Zone" or "Tales from the Crypt", where you're telling random one-off short stories that have no bearing to each other, only in that situation do you not need continuity.

But if your show that has any substance, you will deal with the continuity you create, and abide by it, good or bad.

I think that's potentially a little over-prescriptive - I agree that a fictional world should abide by broad, consistent rules (writers must remember that transporters exist, for example, and that phasers have a stun setting) but specifics beyond that don't necessarily need to be nailed down, nor does every (or any) standalone story have to have ripple effects beyond itself.

You can have an excellent series that's totally preoccupied with continuity and makes sure every event has consequences, or you can have an excellent series that has very little connective tissue between episodes.

Star Trek has often been the latter; TOS being an obvious example but even the Berman era shows would often discard past events if they were getting in the way of the story of the week. That's a good approach, I think, because it allows the series to act as vehicles for any kind of story the writers might want to tell, and freelancers with great ideas can pitch scripts without worrying about "fitting in". The same characters recurring each week give the sense of a continuing oddysey, but no one story needs to be pinned down or restricted by any other.

I don't see it as that, I see it more as a Historical Drama set in the Future, a Sci-Fi future where we're trying to accurately re-tell what has happened during each shows time frame.

If this were the case, it'd surely be a drama about a very bizarre universe where the abilities of each ship, the personalities and worldviews of the crew, and even facts about the universe itself are malleable.

 

[Yistaan]

fireproof78 hit the nail on the head.


Not everybody started with TOS as their First Trek experience.
There are entire Generations of Trekkies whose starting point wasn't TOS
Many of my generation started with TNG > DS9 > VOY > ENT and never bothering with TOS.
So our experience with Trek Continuity is vastly different.

Hell Lower Decks Creator, Mike McMahon started with TNG and beyond.

It's very similar to different generations of Star Wars fans.
There are some generations of Star Wars fan who didn't start with the The Original Trilogy.
Shocking I know, there are some Star Wars fans who started with the Prequel Trilogy.
And even some Newer Younger Star Wars fans who started with the Sequel Trilogy.

Everybody's perspective of continuity is going to be different based on their lived experience.

---

IMO, every show that is a continuous Lineage of Shows/Franchises set in it's own Continuously Shared Universe, doesn't matter if it's Star Trek, it could be any major series, needs continuity.

Short of being the "Twilight Zone" or "Tales from the Crypt", where you're telling random one-off short stories that have no bearing to each other, only in that situation do you not need continuity.

But if your show that has any substance, you will deal with the continuity you create, and abide by it, good or bad.


I don't see it as that, I see it more as a Historical Drama set in the Future, a Sci-Fi future where we're trying to accurately re-tell what has happened during each shows time frame.


They made their choice to explore that period of time in Trek, they have to live with the consequences of doing so.

It has it's good & bad moments, but I enjoy the exploration into existing continuity, it's fun.

The thing is with Trek most of the continuity errors are genuine mistakes that are understandable. These are writers with deadlines to churn out stories and they do their best but until that AI Continuity Checker gets perfected they're going to make mistakes.

Even then fans are able to wring together continuity fixes. Even here, the mind meld with Kirk wasn't a retrieval of information, so Spock's claim in Dagger of the Mind that he never performed an 'ancient Vulcan technique' on a human before (he didn't actually call it a mind meld) could still fit if we assume that Vulcans have more specific definitions for types of mind melds.

This is far better than say Andor where Tony Gilroy knew LFL policy that all works were canonical since 2014 and knew about the K-2SO origin comic but purposely steamrolled it anyway. He gets away with it because of his skill as a writer and his critical acclaim.

We've seen no evidence that anyone on SNW is purposely ignoring continuity at the level that Gilroy did in that instance.

 

[Kraig]

It's surprising they remembered the wheelchair plot point, because I honestly thought it should have been a MASSIVE factor in Pike's desire to remain Vulcan a few weeks ago and it would've tied in with La'an's desire to start a pre-emptive war (if that war wipes out the Romulans, both of the bad futures that Pike has seen could be averted). But it wasn't even mentioned in that episode.

In order for Pike to know about his future, he would have to have travelled in time to see it. The Vulcan Science Directorate believes the concept of time travel is illogical. Pike as a Vulcan would then also see it as illogical to believe he actually saw the future as a human.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I think that's potentially a little over-prescriptive - I agree that a fictional world should abide by broad, consistent rules (writers must remember that transporters exist, for example, and that phasers have a stun setting) but specifics beyond that don't necessarily need to be nailed down, nor does every (or any) standalone story have to have ripple effects beyond itself.

You can have an excellent series that's totally preoccupied with continuity and makes sure every event has consequences, or you can have an excellent series that has very little connective tissue between episodes.

Star Trek has often been the latter; TOS being an obvious example but even the Berman era shows would often discard past events if they were getting in the way of the story of the week. That's a good approach, I think, because it allows the series to act as vehicles for any kind of story the writers might want to tell, and freelancers with great ideas can pitch scripts without worrying about "fitting in". The same characters recurring each week give the sense of a continuing oddysey, but no one story needs to be pinned down or restricted by any other.

If this were the case, it'd surely be a drama about a very bizarre universe where the abilities of each ship, the personalities and worldviews of the crew, and even facts about the universe itself are malleable.

To each his own, you have your flavor of preference for continuity, I have mine.
If that's your preference, then so be it.
I like hard formatted internal consistency within each Franchise/Series.
If you delve into details, I'm going to hold you to said details.
Doesn't matter what it is, as long as it exists, I want you to be able to explain yourself.

The thing is with Trek most of the continuity errors are genuine mistakes that are understandable. These are writers with deadlines to churn out stories and they do their best but until that AI Continuity Checker gets perfected they're going to make mistakes.

I'm not worried about the minor mistakes like the Enterprise-D firing phasers out of the Torpedo Tube.
Or the Romulan D'Deridex firing Torpedoes or Beams out of it's Navigational Deflector Dish.

I chock that up to VFX errors.

Even then fans are able to wring together continuity fixes. Even here, the mind meld with Kirk wasn't a retrieval of information, so Spock's claim in Dagger of the Mind that he never performed an 'ancient Vulcan technique' on a human before (he didn't actually call it a mind meld) could still fit if we assume that Vulcans have more specific definitions for types of mind melds.

This is far better than say Andor where Tony Gilroy knew LFL policy that all works were canonical since 2014 and knew about the K-2SO origin comic but purposely steamrolled it anyway. He gets away with it because of his skill as a writer and his critical acclaim.

We've seen no evidence that anyone on SNW is purposely ignoring continuity at the level that Gilroy did in that instance.

SNW has done a "Okay Job", not too many continuity errors.

Thought the ones it does make, brings up plenty of speculation.

 

[Yistaan]

In order for Pike to know about his future, he would have to have travelled in time to see it. The Vulcan Science Directorate believes the concept of time travel is illogical. Pike as a Vulcan would then also see it as illogical to believe he actually saw the future as a human.

That was a century ago I don't think that's 23rd century Vulcan policy

 

[fireproof78]

But if your show that has any substance, you will deal with the continuity you create, and abide by it, good or bad.

Most shows don't except in broad strokes, at least the ones I enjoy. Mash bring my go to example of a par excellence show with messy continuity.

This is far better than say Andor where Tony Gilroy knew LFL policy that all works were canonical since 2014 and knew about the K-2SO origin comic but purposely steamrolled it anyway. He gets away with it because of his skill as a writer and his critical acclaim.

As writers should, critically acclaimed or not

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

Not everybody started with TOS as their First Trek experience.
There are entire Generations of Trekkies whose starting point wasn't TOS
Many of my generation started with TNG > DS9 > VOY > ENT and never bothering with TOS.
So our experience with Trek Continuity is vastly different.

I started with TOS but I was about 4 years old so continuity, canon and misogyny were concepts unknown to me.

The only thing I really understood about Trek was when I was about 5 and I saw TNG I knew I hated it because it wasn't Kirk, Spock and McCoy . That's honestly true that it took me a few years to embrace TNGas what would become "my Trek"